


Quarantine

by whereismygarden



Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-08
Updated: 2015-05-08
Packaged: 2018-03-29 13:46:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3898507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whereismygarden/pseuds/whereismygarden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Young and Rush, in quarantine together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quarantine

**Author's Note:**

> I lock this pairing in a room, literally. Took a lot of inspiration from "Survival of the Fittest" for some of the emotional tone, so credit where it's due.

                Rush barely managed to avoid wincing as the door to the hastily designated quarantine rooms shut and sealed. He couldn’t blame Tamara, not when he and Young had both come through the gate covered in the guts of the beached water creature that had burst like a whale when they attempted to harvest bone.

                He didn’t even have his notebook or a laptop to work on, though Eli had tossed him a single stick of chalk as they moved from the showers to this room, under Tamara’s watchful masked eyes. He stood facing the wall next to the door, wondering which problem would be best tackled without the resources of Destiny’s computers or his own notes. Perhaps his modeling of the Destiny gates algorithm would benefit from a fresh perspective: he had been down a rabbit hole of 6-dimensional equations whenever he had a chance to work on it lately. He chalked out the beginnings of the problem, ignoring Young’s presence. It wasn’t like the man was in a frame of mind or mood to kill him anymore, though being alone with him sent familiar prickles of unease up his spine and into his belly.

                He whirled and nearly punched the man when Young tapped him on the shoulder, shaking him abruptly out of his work. Young caught his arm, jerking back.

                “Calm down,” he said quietly, his deep voice hoarse. The look on his face suggested he might have spoken, and Rush hadn’t heard.

                “What do you want?” he snapped, shaking Young off.

                “Do you want any food? It’s been three hours.” Had it? That seemed like a long time, but when he looked up at his progress, his work covered a good section of the wall, so perhaps it had been.

                “I’m not hungry.” Young stepped away, unscrewing a canteen and taking a long drink.

                “You want to explain some of your math to me?” Rush frowned at his request, and he continued, “Well, we’ve got plenty of time right now.” He sat down on the bed, looking diagonally over at Rush’s wall of work. His bare feet, incongruous when Rush was used to seeing him in combat boots, rested on the edge of the mattress. For some reason, the sight of Young in a t shirt and bare feet was disarming. He decided to humor him, or at least pretend to.

                “I’m modeling Destiny’s gates algorithm, specifically how the computer dials adaptively and locks out distant gates. It seems intuitive for gates to have to be in range of one another, but that’s just a byproduct of thinking we’ve all learned in our lives, dealing with Earth technology.” He moved to the wall next to the bed and drew an x. “The amount of energy required to dial and form a wormhole is constant within galaxies, because of the nature of the subspace link between gate networks.” A series of ys, various distances from the x. “Between galaxies is different, and not understood, but the general theory is that the subspace link is weak, so weak, in fact, that the gate draws more power because the, uh, think of them as the processors of the gate, can’t recognize that a dial is possible.”

                “So it’s not harder to make the leap, it’s just harder to see the other side,” Young simplified. He considered. That was wrong, but it wasn’t unhelpful in understanding.

                “You could say that,” he said. “In fact, just think of it that way.” Young gave him a hard smile.

                “Only way I could understand?” he said dryly.

                “I could give you a course in wormhole physics, or Volker could, if you really wanted one.”

                “I’ll pass,” he said, and Rush smiled at the wall.

                “Well, the Destiny gates seem to have that problem to a greater degree. In fact, range limits are built in. I thought at first that that was in order to prevent the number of accessible addresses in the database from becoming computationally unmanageable for the dialing program, but I’m not sure that’s right, in light of the existing constraints on the newer systems in the Milky Way and Pegasus.” He gestured at his insights on the filled wall. Young smiled again, a little more friendly.

                “Remember to write that down,” he said. “Why would the Ancients put limits into the gate network?” Rush nodded, excited.

                “Well, that’s the question. Danger? Safety? Ideology? I’m still thinking about it, but knowing what we do about the Ancients, probably some mixture.” Young nodded, and stretched out on the bed, looking uncomprehendingly over the equations on the wall.

                “I’m going to try and sleep, unless you want the bed.” Rush, caught again by the unusual sight of his arms and feet, shook his head.

                “No, thank you.” Young closed his eyes at that, and put one arm over his eyes.

                Rush worked a little more on his idea, feeling his heartbeat pick up at the possible structures underlying the current dialing programs, and he paced back and forth for a while, not wanting to come off the high of beginning a new discovery. If he could disentangle the principles from the code, they could make exceptional advances in gate travel.

                His focus on problem-solving disintegrated in the face of tiredness and distraction at the multitudinous applications of this not long after, and he settled on the couch, wondering if he would be able to sleep. His heart was still racing.

                No, he couldn’t sleep, so he drank some water and considered Young, for no real reason. The man usually looked so harried and stiff in his jacket, but now, out of his uniform, asleep, he looked, not smaller or softer, but something. Unguarded, perhaps, with his dark hair fallen back from his face. There was a line of skin visible between the hem of his shirt and his waistband, and Rush swallowed, looked away. That was not a train of thought he needed to start on, not when he was keyed up and distractible and locked in a room with Young.

                Once he had acknowledged it as a thing he didn’t want to do, however, he couldn’t help but seize on it, despite knowing it was a bad idea. He sat down on the couch, closed his eyes, and tried to call to mind the memory of Young’s arm locked around his neck, choking him into submission on the deck of an abandoned ship, and it worked for a full ten minutes, until he had exhausted the remembered terror and the thought of Young’s strength was turning arousing. That was terrifying in itself, but more in the sense of the knowledge about himself it gave him. He could forgive most things: he had forgiven Young for his attempted murder, he had forgiven Mandy for lying to him, even if he couldn’t tell her. But there was a distance between forgiving and forgetting, to the point that the thought of Young touching him wasn’t filled with fear or revulsion.

                He threw his chalk against the wall, where it broke into three pieces. It did not, unsurprisingly, make him feel better. His heart still picked up when he thought too hard about Young, and he could feel the blood in his cock, which felt heavy, slightly aroused. He picked up the radio on the edge of the table.

                “Lieutenant Johansen,” he said, and Tamara’s voice came through.

                “Dr. Rush?”

                “I feel fine, and the colonel is fine.”

                “Nice try. You’ve got another twenty hours. Johansen out.” He slammed the radio back onto the table and heard Young turn over on the bed and make a scoffing sound.

                “Did you think that would work?” Rush gave him his most intense scornful look and ran his hands through his hair. Young didn’t say anything for a moment. “Why don’t you try and rest?” He would rather die than torment himself by lying in the bed where Young had just been, and didn’t move from the couch. For some obscured reason, and no doubt from his own overactive thoughts about it on top of whatever that reason was, the sight of Young stretched out in bed, head on his arm, was making him hard.

                “Why don’t you go back to sleep?” he bit out, and took a drink of water from his canteen. Young sat up fully in the bed, hair sticking up in some places and flattened in others. The skin around his eyes and forehead was slightly reddened from where his arm had been.

                “Are you okay?” Young stood up, tilting his head. “You look kind of flushed, do you need antibiotics?”

                “I am not sick,” Rush bit out. He would prefer a case of alien smallpox to the erection currently between his legs, hidden by the arm of the couch.

                “You just don’t look that great,” Young said, coming forward, and Rush tried to think of something horrible, but nothing came to mind in the face of his body, which had been denied for a long time and was getting its own back, apparently. “Your breathing sounds off, and—oh.” He turned his head to the side, and Rush felt the flush Young had cited spread over his cheeks.

                “Right,” he snapped. “Now that I’ve been humiliated, would you like to go back to the other side of the room and not speak to me for our next twenty hours together?” Young stuck his hands in his pockets, stepped back a little. He was blushing too, and it looked strange and charming on his face.

                “I didn’t know you—“ Young faltered as Rush cut him a glare.

                “You didn’t know I what?” he snarled. “I’m sure there’s a long list of things you didn’t and don’t know about me.” Young walked back to the bed, sitting with his back against the wall and staring at the floor.

                There was a long, stretching, and agonizing silence. Rush could feel his face burning, and wondered furiously what Young was thinking of him. Probably any number of things: he had never heard the man espouse a moral stance besides reciting the military stance on leaving people behind, no matter that he was, or had been, willing to break it. If he ever brought this up outside this room, Rush would punch him. That decision relaxed him fractionally. God, if only his state of burning humiliation and discomfort would do more than slightly take the edge of his erection and corresponding arousal. He closed his eyes, tried to picture a series of matrices to think about.

                “You know,” Young broke the silence, and Rush looked over to see him stand up again, walk a step forward, and stop.

                “Don’t say anything,” Rush advised him, and Young shot him a version of his unpleasant smile, shaking his head.

                “God, you are a lot of work,” he said, and then his expression opened up somewhat, making him look deeply uncomfortable. “You’re not the only swinger on Destiny, you know.” He reached down and cupped himself through the front of his pants, giving Rush an eyeful of half-hard cock covered in black cloth.

                For a second, he just blinked at Young, trying to catch up and understand what Young was saying. He had bit it out in his usual terse voice, but it had been an attempt to alieve the embarrassment wrapped around Rush, by taking it on himself. Not a move Rush would have made.

                “Hm,” he said, and Young adjusted himself, looking distinctly flushed. Oh, there was a question. “So,” he said, feeling his heartrate kick up and embracing the rush. “Did you get yourself into this state just to make me feel better?” Young walked stiffly back to the bed and sat down, giving him a brooding look.

                “Being stared at by you with a hard-on is hardly calming me down,” he said. “For you, from you, whatever.”

                They stared at each other awkwardly for a moment, then Rush swallowed as Young pressed a hand between his legs and rubbed a little. Fuck, that was something to watch, Young’s eyes burning into his while he touched his cock.

                “We have almost twenty hours,” Young said roughly, putting his hands on his knees. Rush wondered what to say first. That this was not to be taken as an expression of friendship or affection? It couldn’t be part of their relatively amiable working relationship by definition. “What do you want?”

                “A lot,” Rush said, smiling narrowly, making up his mind and feeling adrenaline sing through him. “Come here.” Young did, to his surprise, stood up and walked over so that he was standing between Rush’s knees. He could feel the heat coming off his body, he thought.

                Young leaned his knees onto the couch, put his hands on Rush’s shoulders and leaned down to kiss him. Rush, against his will, flinched back, starting.

                “Hey,” Young said, jumping back. “You okay?”

                “Slower,” he said, trying to work through the mess of fear and arousal crowding his mind. “Just a reflex.”

                “Yeah,” Young said softly, and he sounded a little sad. Then he stepped close again, but instead of getting onto the couch, he got onto his knees between Rush’s, putting his hands carefully on his thighs. He gave Rush a questioning look. “How do you feel about blowjobs?”

                “You don’t have to go slow there,” Rush said, feeling a huff of disbelieved laughter escape him. Fuck, Young’s reaction to his hesitance was to offer oral? The man must have gotten laid nonstop in his youth. Young’s hands opened his jeans, pulled his cock out of his underwear, and stroked him once.

                “Nice,” he said, not a hint of sarcasm in his voice, an appreciative light in his eyes, and Rush barely had time to savor that before he slid him into his mouth.

                God, he might die of this. He fisted his hands in the fabric of his jeans as Young’s hot, silky mouth moved over him, tongue rubbing along his cock, and he moaned out loud as Young bent his head down and took him deep, so his tip pressed into the soft flesh of his throat.

                “Oh my God,” he panted, giving in to the urge to run his hands through Young’s hair. “Oh my _God._ ” Young lifted his head up, gave him a self-satisfied look, and then bent down again, this time to kiss at the base of his cock and run his hot, sinful tongue over his balls. The man was doing something unbelievably good with his mouth, and his hand was wet on his cock, squeezing and rubbing up and down. “Don’t stop,” he said, running his thumb down Young’s cheek and jaw. God, he looked like he was enjoying it, smiling as he took Rush’s cock back into his mouth and worked his lips and tongue over the head for a moment.

                “I can’t deepthroat you and have you fuck me at the same time,” Young said, and the words tore a low groan from Rush. Young wanted him to fuck him. Hell. He could already imagine the man on his back in front of him, cock hard and legs spread, and he couldn’t help but rock his hips forward into Young’s mouth.

                “I’m sure,” he said, panting, “that I could think of something.” Young took his mouth away again, making him whine and jerk his hips up, into Young’s soothing hand.

                “How about this, you can’t put your cock up my ass while I suck it,” he said, and Rush came, fingers clutching Young’s curls as his orgasm tore through him, like a wave knocked through a tight string: ending fast but leaving him with little, shaking aftershocks as he spurted all over Young’s hand.

                He closed his eyes, trying to catch his breath, and ran his fingers through Young’s hair, trying to neaten it and parse everything Young had just said. The man had a gift for making vulgarity arousing that he hadn’t expected, but apparently appreciated.

                “God,” he said, and Young wiped his hand on the couch. They would have to clean up later. “You know, realistically, even though we have plenty of time, I don’t think I can actually fuck you in this room. There’s a distinct lack of lubricant.” Young put his face against Rush’s thigh and made a noise that sounded like a laugh. He lifted his head with a smile and a hungry look in his eyes.

                “It made you come, though, didn’t it? You can get inside me later.” Young sat down next to him, leaned in to kiss him. He was needy, sucking at Rush’s lips and biting at his jaw, moaning a little when Rush bit his lower lip.

                “Patience,” he soothed, and Young let Rush push him onto his back, undo his pants, and take his cock out of his boxers. It was thick, slightly curved, already wet at the dark tip, and Rush felt an appreciation for it at a visceral level. He traced his fingers over it lightly, then up Young’s side, putting his hands under his t shirt and finally feeling all the skin he’d been thinking about. He wanted to strip him naked, appreciate his body, but Young was squirming underneath.

                “Rush, come on,” Young said, and Rush pushed in close to him, so that Young’s legs were on either side of his thighs and folded up. He ran his hand up Young’s heavy neck, his strong jaw and his small, surprisingly delicate mouth.

                “I said patience,” he growled, and kissed him, putting a lot of teeth into it and running a finger around the head of Young’s cock. Young subsided, letting his head fall onto the arm of the couch, gripping his own thighs as Rush scooted backwards. This was awkward with both of them on the couch, but he owed it to Young, and he wanted to anyway.

                Young was thick, and his jaw ached almost immediately, but the deep groan that Young made as Rush slid his mouth over his length made it worth the work. He breathed through his nose, kept his hands firmly on Young’s thighs, and let the sensation of Young’s cock sliding past his lips turn him on.

                “Rush,” Young moaned, and he felt Young’s fingers run through his hair, trembling a little. He continued to suck at a steady pace, moving his head up and down, until Young’s hips and thighs were shaking under his hands. He was gasping, hissing Rush’s name every so often, and Rush took one hand to rub gently over his balls and wrapped the other around his cock, going as fast as he could.

                Young came with an uncontrolled twitching of his hips, and Rush almost gagged for a moment, but he managed to swallow, and the sound of Young moaning his name as he came more than made up for the discomfort. He pulled off, licked his lips so Young could see, and sat up, realizing his own cock was still hanging half out of his jeans. He put himself away, watching Young just lie and breathe for a few moments, before sitting close to him.

                “Were you being serious, about me fucking you?” he asked. Young sat up, fixing his clothes, and gave him a bleary look. Rush waited for him to come back to himself, and wondered if he should have asked. But he didn’t want the question hanging over them. Young looked at him, a cautious expression on his face.

                “I don’t know if I was being serious when I said it, but yeah. We seem,” he paused, gave Rush a smile, “surprisingly well-suited.”

                “Yeah,” he said, and wondered if he could have been fucking Young since their first year on Destiny. Probably not. Locking them in a room together without imminent danger seemed to have been a necessary step. He wondered if the attempted framing and murder and coups and secrecy had been necessary too, to get them into this state of fascination. That was a morbid thought, if interesting.

                He let Young pull them over to the bed, and the bed still smelled like him, even if currently Rush couldn’t smell more like him if he had tried. He made Young get on the side of the wall, and put one arm around him. It was more intimate than he had expected it to be compared to having the man come in his mouth, for God’s sake, but feeling Young’s steady breath going in and out was nice. Soothing with its precision: always the same period, not much fuzz around the crests and troughs. Predictable, unlike everything else about him.

                There was a different kind of danger in snuggling up with the man after sex, one that could lead to a lot of messy emotional entanglements he had no time to manage, but now, with no distractions, no work, he let himself do it. He was tired, and they had one bed, and Young was warm and smelled good. He slipped into sleep.

                He woke up with Young half on top of him, and shoved him to the side as he sat up. Young woke up and grunted in annoyance, then froze.

                “Hey,” he said. Rush checked his watch and hissed in annoyance. They still had ten hours to go before Lieutenant Johansen released them. Young huffed.

                “How much time?” he asked. Rush stuck his watch in Young’s face. Young grunted, displeased, just as Rush’s stomach growled. He looked at the unappetizing provisions and chose one, chewing half-heartedly on the mess of dried protein and fruit glued into a bar by something unpleasantly sweet. His chalk was still over on the floor; perhaps he could get something accomplished.

                Young did a number of exercises while he filled the rest of the wall, until he got bored of that and came over to Rush, shaking him out of another reverie. He was covered in sweat and smelled surprisingly appealing.

                “We’ve got seven hours,” he murmured into Rush’s ear. Rush tucked the fragment of chalk he was holding into his pocket and leaned back against Young, who slid his arm around his waist. It gave him a brief thrill of fear, but it diminished quickly, frissoning into lust. A learned response, fading quickly: a few more rounds with Young, and it would be gone nearly for good.

                “Plenty of time,” he said obligingly, and felt Young’s mouth curl into a grin against his cheek.

~

                Young wished dearly that there were showers in the quarters, instead of just sinks. He cleaned himself up as best as he could, dabbed a few bits of come off his pants, and neatened his hair. Rush didn’t look like he was going to oblige. His hair was a mess, which could possibly be attributed to bedhead, except it wasn’t normally so messy.

                “Are you going to brush your hair?” he asked. Rush was back to chalking on the walls, and had started giving the science team orders via radio. Rush didn’t answer, just gave him an annoyed look, as if to say, why would I?

                The answer, of course, was because the room stank like sex and Rush’s insane hair wasn’t going to dispel that idea when TJ came to let them out. He wasn’t accountable to TJ, but it was still going to be awful to open the door to her inquiry about the amount of transmittable bacteria in their systems and watch her work it out. He didn’t push the issue, though, because he didn’t want to piss off Rush. The last thing he needed was Rush deciding to cut his losses and drop this _thing_ before it had time to grow, because he thought Young still wanted TJ. Even if it was always going to be partially true.

                He watched Rush narrow his eyes and write something down, quickly, then pause. He worked in fits and starts, a little, though Young doubted he actually realized it. All that focus, the absolute commitment Rush made to everything, had always impressed and intimidated him a little, even when his choice was to attack Young. If it wasn’t, though—they got along now, and Rush didn’t devote his considerable brain to tearing him apart anymore. The thought of what it would be like if Rush turned that focus his way, during sex or otherwise, into whatever thing was forming between them, was exhilarating and a little terrifying.

                He had weathered everything else Rush had seen fit to throw at him, though, and this would be the same. He held onto that thought when their quarantine ended, and TJ was waiting with sample tubes and finger sticks, because Rush looked disheveled and he looked only slightly better, and, dear God, there was a small bite mark bruising up on Rush’s neck. James’s eyebrows were in danger of reaching her hairline, and she composed herself after Young gave her a sharp look. He took a breath.

                He could get through anything after twenty-four hours in quarantine with Rush.              


End file.
